


won't you help to sing these songs of freedom?

by Brilliant_But_Scary_Bad_Wolf



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, F/F, Gen, adora believes everything she's told, adora is a dumbass, catra is not a reliable narrator, catra: hahaha jk . . . unless?, fuck you shadow weaver, i feel like this probably DID happen in canon even if we never saw it, it really would've reinforced Catra's resentment of adora, least of all catra herself, no actual romance but i ship it so there, nobody believes in catra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25658260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brilliant_But_Scary_Bad_Wolf/pseuds/Brilliant_But_Scary_Bad_Wolf
Summary: Duh! Did ya just figure that out? Manipulation is Shadow Weaver's whole thing. She's been messing with our heads since we were kids.How could you possibly be okay with that?. . .Are you kidding? You've known these people for, what, a couple hours? And you're just gonna throw everything away for them? Ugh. What happened to you?_____Catra wants to leave.
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	won't you help to sing these songs of freedom?

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen people talk about the scene where Adora confronts Catra about how evil the Horde is; about how much it probably hurt Catra that Adora was realizing that and wanting to leave the Horde now, but that seeing how they treated Catra was never enough to earn that reaction.
> 
> It made me wonder if Catra had ever tried to get Adora to leave before, so I wrote a thing. Catra and Adora are about 15/16 in this fic.

Once, after a particularly bad day of training, Catra said something about it to Adora.

* * *

It had been going well, at first. The entire mass of cadets were sparring, every girl, boy, lizard, and cat for themselves. It was a common enough exercise, meant to define rankings for their group of cadets. Of course, Adora had come out on top the last three times they’d done this, but somehow, despite all her obvious flaws and inabilities, Catra was . . . winning?

Well, there was still a handful of cadets remaining, Adora included, but Catra herself had taken out several others, including Kyle within literal seconds of the start of the exercise. She was actually starting to feel hopeful. Maybe, just maybe, she could actually win this. Maybe then the other cadets would like her. Maybe then they could see . . . Maybe Shadow Weaver would believe that she wasn’t totally useless, and actually want to keep her around. Maybe . . .

Catra leapt at Lonnie, claws out, blocking an attack from the other girl by rolling under her outstretched arms and landing a hit behind Lonnie’s knee. She was so focused on Lonnie that she didn’t see the smirk on her squadmate’s face until she felt a hand in her hair, yanking her backwards and slamming her flat on her back. Two cadets from other squads had teamed up on her, and from Lonnie’s expression, they’d planned this all along. Catra tried to roll out of the way, only to roll back in order to narrowly avoid being stomped on. Strong arms pushed down on her shoulders, holding her on the ground, and a frantic, frustrated squeal that was only barely tinged with fear escaped her lips.

“Catra!” Out of the corner of her eye, Catra saw Adora reach for her, wide-eyed. Her friend took a blow for her troubles, distracted as she was, and Catra couldn’t help but watch as Adora just barely managed to dodge another attack that would’ve surely knocked her out of the fight before handily dispatching her opponent. It was at this point, of course, that Catra looked back up just in time to see Lonnie grin and stomp hard on Catra’s chest, eliciting a grunt of pain and setting off the sensor that disqualified Catra from the competition.

She lay there for a minute as the other cadets moved off, breathing hard and barely noticing as Adora managed to secure yet another victory.

“Hey, Catra? You okay?” Releasing a frustrated yell, Catra ignored Adora’s proffered hand and rolled to her feet, stomping off towards the showers. Only for Adora to follow. “You actually did really well this time, Catra!” the blonde offered.

Catra scowled for a moment, and then schooled her features to smile at Adora. “Thanks. I’m fine- I just want a shower. Go hang out with your fan club,” she nodded at the rest of their squad, who had hung around to congratulate their teammate, “and I’ll see you later.”

Adora hesitated, but after a moment acquiesced, throwing Catra one more encouraging smile before parting ways. For her part, Catra managed to hold it in, maintaining her composure until she reached the thankfully empty locker room. She slammed her fist into her own locker as the claws of her other hand scratched thin lines into metal that had been marred many times over the years. Resting her forehead against the cool metal, Catra blinked away tears that were threatening to fall as she reached to pull off her sweaty uniform.

“Catra.”

Catra flinched, hands dropping away from the fabric as she whirled around to face the all-too familiar voice. Maybe Shadow Weaver was coming to congratulate her? She **had** done really quite well. The expression on her guardian’s face quickly disillusioned her of that theory, and Catra wanted to slam her head back against the locker for being so monumentally useless and **stupid**. What would Shadow Weaver possibly ever have to congratulate someone as worthless as **her** about?

Unwilling to put on further displays of weakness, Catra remained mostly still, but couldn’t help but hunch over herself as Shadow Weaver approached, towering over the girl.

“They teamed up on me!” she stupidly blurted out, as if that was any kind of excuse for her abject failure. As if Shadow Weaver had ever cared what Catra had to say for herself.

Shadows filled the room, and her body seized up, filled with that all too familiar painfully crackling energy. It clawed into her insides, as if cracking the bones of her ribcage and squeezing the air from her lungs and tearing the pulse from her heart. She was lifted bodily into the air; enough that the claws on her stretched out toes did not reach the cold floor, but not so much that her head, forced to tilt upward did not still have to peer towards the ceiling to see her tormentor. Shadow Weaver casually flicked a finger (as if this meant nothing to her, which, Catra supposed, was probably the case), and Catra was bodily slammed backwards into the locker.

It hurt, but the physical pain was nothing, really. It was Shadow Weaver’s hand on her face, roughly grabbing her chin and yanking her hair tufts, and Shadow Weaver’s cold, scathing voice in her ear that always seemed to cause the most pain. This time was no different.

“I see that simple failure wasn’t enough for you this time,” Shadow Weaver hissed at her, mask inches away from Catra’s face, “I expected such a poor performance from someone as pathetically insufferable as **you**. But today your conduct was abysmal enough that you nearly cost Adora her ranking.”

A shock of electricity buzzed through Catra’s body, making it twitch painfully, a squeak escaping her lips as she could do nothing but stare up at Shadow Weaver.

“I should not have to remind **you** how inconsequentially worthless you are, cadet. I could never see why Adora felt you were worth keeping around, but **she** is the only thing that has kept me from disposing of you. Continue to hinder her success, and I will have no choice but to rid her of your insignificant presence.”

Without a further word, Shadow Weaver’s grip on her chin relinquished, and she turned on her heel and left the room, releasing Catra to drop to her knees only after her back had disappeared from view.

Catra gasped as her breath returned to her, clawing angrily at the floor until she heard the murmur of others from around the corner. Scrambling to her feet, Catra straightened her uniform and swiped at her damp cheeks before fleeing the room, shouldering her way past a group of older cadets.

* * *

Adora found her later. The sound of the grappling hook scraping against the roof startled her out of her thoughts, and Catra scrambled halfway to her feet before she realized who it was that had joined her. The only person it really could’ve been, as nobody else knew where Catra liked to go. Shadow Weaver maybe, but the woman would hardly ever do something so undignified as climbing around the Fright Zone to locate her ward.

“Hey Adora,” she greeted the other girl, sitting back down and staring out over the horizon once more.

“Catra?” Adora questioned as she sat down next to her. “You weren’t at dinner. Some of the older cadets said you scratched up the locker room floor?”

Catra shrugged. “I’m fine.”

Adora frowned. “Did something happen?”

“Shadow Weaver.”

Short as it was, the answer was enough. Adora’s frown deepened. “What did you do? Was it because of training? Or . . . Catra, you’ve gotta stop talking back to her. If you could just . . . just try and listen to her? For me? She really does know what she’s talking about.”

Catra bit her lip and shrugged again, but didn’t bother correcting Adora. The other girl wasn’t quite right about everything, didn’t realize how much of Shadow Weaver’s discipline had to do with Adora herself, but . . . she wasn’t wrong, really. Catra **had** talked back to Shadow Weaver. Spoken up in her own defense when there was nothing about Catra worth defending. After all, she **had** failed today’s exercise, and even worse, she’d jeopardized Adora’s future. Shadow Weaver had made it clear long ago that such behavior was unacceptable, and Catra had done it anyways.

“Catra?” Adora tried again after a long moment of silence. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been there to protect you.”

Catra didn’t know if Adora was talking about the training exercise, or about Shadow Weaver. Knowing Adora, probably both. Not that the other girl would’ve actually done anything to protect Catra when it came down to it. Not if it risked her standing within the Horde, or with Shadow Weaver. Catra shook her head as if to clear it from those pointless thoughts.

“What if we just . . . left?” she asked suddenly after another long moment of silence. She felt Adora turn to look at her properly, but couldn’t bear to meet her friend’s eyes.

“Catra what are you talking about?”

She pulled her knees up into her chest and wrapped her arms around them, as if that would hide this monumental display of weakness. “I mean, what if we just decided not to stay here anymore.”

“You want to defect?” Adora asked, confusion evident in her voice.

“No!” Catra protested. “Just, I dunno. What’s keeping us here, really? We’re not kids anymore. We don’t need them to take care of us. And I know we’ve never been outside the Fright Zone before, but we would figure it out. We could go anywhere!” The idea grew in her, and she couldn’t hide the excitement in her voice. “Far away, like, on the other side of Etheria where no one could find us. Not any princesses or the other cadets or even Shadow Weaver. It would be just us.”

Adora’s eyes were wide. With disbelief or confusion or disappointment she wasn’t sure. Probably the third one. “Catra, we can’t leave,” she started, as if unsure whether the other girl was truly serious. “Our lives are here. The Horde is counting on us.”

 _The Horde is counting on you, you mean_ , Catra thought. No one was counting on Catra.

“We have a duty,” Adora was saying, “a destiny to lead the Horde to defeat the evil princesses and save Etheria, like we always wanted. And anyways, why would we even want to leave? The Fright Zone is our home. Shadow Weaver raised us, we can’t just leave her and everything we’ve ever worked for. She would be so disappointed in us.”

_Hordak forbid Shadow Weaver ever be disappointed in Adora._

Catra just scrunched in on herself tighter before forcing herself to relax, presenting Adora with a smile that anyone other than her oblivious friend would know was a lie. “Relax, Adora,” she offered, voice tenser than she meant it to be. Adora, thankfully, took no notice. “It was just a joke. We’d never make it out of the Fright Zone without getting caught, anyways.”

It had been a stupid, fleeting thought and a foolish dream. You couldn’t just leave the Horde, and that was doubly true for Adora and Catra, who had never known life outside of it. It wasn’t like Catra would ever actually leave, anyways. At least, not without Adora. And Adora would **never** leave. Adora actually **believed** in the Horde’s mission. Actually believed that they were doing good, and who was Catra to take that away from her?

Catra grinned at her friend. “Come on, I’m starving. Do you think they have any of the grey kind left in the mess hall? Let’s go sneak in. Bet you can’t beat me there!”

**Author's Note:**

> tldr;
> 
> Catra: We could leave?  
> Adora: Ummm what? No????  
> Catra: Hahahahaha jk . . . unless?  
> Catra: No, definitely jk for sure hahahah I love it here.
> 
> Adora is most certainly an oblivious dumbass, but she too was abused by Shadow Weaver, so I don't really fault her for not understanding the severity of what was being done to Catra (and herself).


End file.
